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Saturday, August 30, 2014

The Islamist Threat to European Security, by Leslie Lebl

Growing Muslim populations in Europe affect European security in a
variety of ways from changes in voting patterns and military
recruitment; to the proliferation of Islamist groups espousing goals
antithetical to Western values and interests; to the development of
no-go zones where traditional Islamic law, or Shari'a, is replacing
Western law; to Islamist attempts to influence and exploit European
policies toward conflicts in the Muslim world.

Growing Muslim Populations

The
first Muslim fair in Brussels in 2012 (above) had more than 20,000
visitors. In Brussels, an estimated 22 percent of residents are Muslims,
and the Muslim quarter is only a few underground stops away from the
European Union headquarters. In London, Muslims dominate the borough of
Tower Hamlets; in Paris, Clichy-sous-Bois; in Berlin, the Kreutzberg
neighborhood. In both Malmö, Sweden, in the north and Marseilles in the
south, Muslims account for an estimated quarter of the population.

European attitudes toward Muslims are influenced by the expectation
that Muslim populations in Europe, which have grown rapidly in the past
several decades, will continue to increase in the future and constitute a
greater percentage of the total population.[1]
With that in mind, in 2010, Muslims accounted for an estimated 5
percent of Europe's total population or almost 27 million out of more
than 536 million people. While European Muslim fertility has declined,
it still exceeds that of the native populations: By 2030, through
immigration and natural increase, the total Muslim population is
projected to grow by 44 percent to more than 38 million or just under 7
percent of the total population.[2]

While today's overall percentage of European Muslims seems relatively
small, their impact is greater than one would expect as they are
clustered in certain urban areas and in countries of strategic
importance. Western Europe, where the growth in Muslim populations is
expected to be the greatest, includes the three foremost NATO countries
(Britain, France, and Germany) as well as Belgium, where NATO is
headquartered. Belgium and France are projected to have Muslim
minorities of greater than 10 percent by 2030.
The actual percentage of Muslims in some urban areas is quite high.
In London, they dominate the borough of Tower Hamlets; in Paris,
Clichy-sous-Bois; in Brussels, the commune of Molenbeek; and in Berlin,
the Kreutzberg neighborhood. In both Malmö, Sweden, in the north and
Marseilles in the south, Muslims account for an estimated quarter of the
population. In Brussels, an estimated 22 percent of residents are
Muslims.[3]
In addition, Muslim populations already have a higher proportion of
young people than does the surrounding populace. While long-term
predictions are risky, no one expects the relative share of Muslims to
decrease. It is much more likely to grow significantly, particularly in
such major cities as Amsterdam, Brussels, Marseilles, or Stockholm.[4]
In a democracy, interest groups often shape security policy as they
increase in size and influence. Muslims have already begun to influence
European elections. They were the deciding factor in a significant
number of constituencies in the 2010 British elections[5]
and may also have decided the recent presidential elections in France
where, of some two million French Muslims who voted, an estimated 93
percent, or 1.7 million, chose François Hollande, who received only 1.1
million votes more than former president Nicholas Sarkozy.[6]
Belgian academic Felice Dassetto notes that the structure provided by
mosques and Islamic associations in Brussels attracts politicians from
various parties who are eager to win Muslim votes. So far, parties that
clearly identify themselves as Islamic have attracted few votes, but
that could change.[7]
The Muslim influence will presumably expand as its population increases
though it is unclear whether Muslim voting patterns will continue to be
as unified.

Military Recruitment and Questions of Loyalty

Changing demographics will also affect the number and type of
military recruits available, particularly for the three largest European
countries already mentioned. Given the population drop in "ethnic
Germans," the Ministry of Defense has already acknowledged, "Demographic
developments make recruitment difficult for the Bundeswehr [the German
armed forces]."[8]
The problem became even more complicated after Germany discontinued the
draft in 2011. While some authorities look to Germany's Turkish
immigrant population as a new source of recruits,[9]
others wonder how this will work in practice. For example, the warm
welcome German-based Turks gave Ankara's Islamist prime minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan during his 2011 visit may be cause for concern if their
leadership endorses his call not to assimilate into German society.[10]
The call by Bekir Alboga, a German-Turkish leader, at the 2013 annual
German Islamic Conference (Deutsche Islamkonferenz) for equal treatment
of Islam, more university faculties of Islamic theology, and wider
acceptance of head scarves, along with an attack on German
"Islamophobia" for causing tension between Muslims and Germans suggests
that the prospects for assimilation are poor.[11]
The Turkish government also rejected a proposal by German defense
minister Thomas De Maizière to lift the requirement for Germans of
Turkish origin to serve in the Turkish military if they served at least
fifteen months in the Bundeswehr.[12]

Changing
demographics will affect the number and type of military recruits
available in European countries. In Germany, for example, some
authorities look to Germany's Turkish immigrant population as a new
source of recruits while others wonder about the effects. The warm
welcome German-based Turks gave Ankara's Islamist prime minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan during his March 2011 visit prompted some concern when
Erdoğan called for immigrants not to assimilate into German society. He
urged immigrant children to learn Turkish first, then German.

The British and French military establishments are already assessing
barriers to Muslim enlistment as well as constraints that Muslim
soldiers may seek to place on possible military operations but have yet
to come up with solutions. In a recent study, British analyst Shiraz
Maher contrasted today's attitudes of Muslim soldiers with those in the
past, particularly during World War I. Then, British Muslim soldiers
remained loyal to the crown despite the fact that they were fighting
Turkey, the Muslim empire that was home to the caliphate. Among other
things, Muslim leaders of that time were successful in defining the
conflict as a political, not religious, war.[13]
Making the case today for various British Muslims to fight other
Muslims appears to be much more difficult. Currently, very few Muslims
serve in the British armed forces: The percentage rose only slightly
from .2 percent in 2008 to .3 percent in 2010.[14]
British military authorities appear to be battling accusations of low
prestige and racism as well as repeated charges that they are engaged in
a war against Islam.
Since France prohibits the collection of personal data on religious
identification, no exact data is available on Muslim participation in
the French armed forces. A study conducted in 2005, identifying Muslims
indirectly via personal contacts, family names, etc., concluded that
many Muslim service members were committed to the French military and to
French political ideals despite continued discrimination.[15]
However, the study reported concerns among more senior Muslim service
members regarding the commitment and quality of younger recruits, many
drawn from French ghettoes.[16] The French press reported a 2009 incident in which French Muslim soldiers refused to fight in Afghanistan[17]
while the 2012 murders of soldiers of Maghreb origin by terrorist
Mohamed Merah in Toulouse and a May 2013 attack on a soldier in Paris
were presumably intended to discourage Muslims from serving in the
French military.
The threat of attacks by Muslim soldiers on other service members is
unclear. This question could be particularly sensitive for Germany,
which has seen the emergence of a Turkish-based jihadist group, the
Islamic Jihad Union, which seeks European members. German intelligence
and law enforcement agencies track individuals whom they identify as
national security threats, but it is unclear what scrutiny military
recruits receive.
Underlying these difficulties is the basic question of loyalty: Do
European Muslims consider themselves true citizens of their new country
and will they fight for it if necessary? A 2009 Pew survey on the
question offers ambiguous results: Large majorities of French, German,
and British Muslims consider themselves to be loyal to the state (80
percent, 71 percent, and 82 percent, respectively).[18]
The non-Muslim citizen remains suspicious, however, with 44 percent, 39
percent, and 49 percent respectively skeptical of their Islamic
neighbors' allegiance. A good part of that doubt is likely the result of
the role played in these countries by the Islamists.

The European Islamists

European Muslims come from different countries and different
traditions; some are religiously observant while others see their
connection to Islam as cultural or even unimportant. Some are newly
arrived while others are second or third generation descendants of
immigrants. Still others are European converts to Islam. Despite this
patchwork quilt, common behavior patterns are emerging throughout Europe
and, in particular, characterize the sympathies of young second- and
third-generation immigrants. A critical commonality is Islamism, defined
here as a twentieth-century political ideology, based on religion,
whose stated aim is to replace Western legal systems with Islamic law
(Shari'a).
While applying any separate legal code is destructive of the state's
monopoly on power, implementing Shari'a would be particularly
destructive as it is fundamentally incompatible with Western law. It is
based on inequality, rather than equality: Women are not equal to men,
nor are non-Muslims to Muslims; nor does it recognize such principles as
freedom of speech, press, or religion. Moreover, as it is based on the
Qur'an—considered to be the unalterable word of God—any dispute must, in
the final analysis, be resolved by religious rather than legal,
civilian, or political authorities.
Islamists have traditionally been divided into two groups, the
violent and the nonviolent. Typically, the violent Islamist pursues
jihad or holy war openly while his nonviolent counterpart publicly
eschews it. Nonviolent Islamists usually engage in proselytization or da'wa, participate in democratic institutions, and are often viewed by the credulous as having accepted Western values.
The most influential of these so-called nonviolent groups is the
Muslim Brotherhood (which for years retained the nonviolent label,
despite the fact that its motto calls for jihad). Although relatively
small in actual numbers, it is without a doubt the most vocal and
prominent of the nonviolent groups. It dominates a wide network of
organizations throughout Europe similar to the front organizations
favored by past totalitarian movements. As analyst Lorenzo Vidino
observes, while the core leaders typically belong to the Muslim
Brotherhood, much of the general membership does not.[19]
Typically, members of the Muslim Brotherhood can be identified through a
combination of personal and financial ties as well as ideological
statements and actions. Members can also be identified by an informal
allegiance to Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, considered by many to be the
group's spiritual leader.
Exploiting the desire of European politicians and government
officials to develop dialogues with Muslim communities in their midst,
the Muslim Brotherhood has
established a high profile in many Western countries. This desire
plays directly to Islamist strengths: It defines individuals according
to their religion, or community, rather than treating them as citizens
and assumes a degree of cohesion among Muslims that they lack in
reality. As a result, Islamist groups have been allowed to speak for a
Muslim community they do not really represent and which may not even
exist as a singular unit. In fact, they are promoting their own goals,
creating a feedback mechanism that enhances their standing among fellow
Muslims while simultaneously shaping government policies.
This pattern is clear if one looks at the umbrella groups with whom European governments discuss issues related to Muslims:

The British government encouraged the establishment of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) in 1997[20]
and then worked closely with it, in particular to combat Islamist
terrorism, but ignored the links of MCB leaders to Islamist
organizations such as the Pakistani-based Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim
Brotherhood.[21]

The French government organized an Islamic umbrella organization in
2003—the Conseil français du culte musulman or French Council of the
Muslim Faith—but one of its key members is the Union of Islamic
Organizations in France, a group affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.[22]

The German Islamic Conferences convened by the German interior
ministry include the Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland (Central
Council for Muslims in Germany) as one of its five Muslim organizations.
The Central Council includes the Islamic Community in Germany, which in
turn grew out of the Islamic Center in Munich set up by Said Ramadan,
son-in-law of Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan al-Banna.[23]

The European-wide umbrella organization of the Muslim Brotherhood,
the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe, moved its
headquarters to Brussels in 2007.[24] Thus, European Union officials meet regularly with senior Brotherhood officials.

Islamist groups do not monopolize contacts with European governments.
Moderate leaders such as former grand mufti of Marseilles, Soheib
Bencheikh, are still important as are national networks set up by
Moroccans, Algerians, and others. But the Islamists have connections to
the deep pockets of Saudi and gulf state funding and have by far the
most powerful linkages to the Muslim world.

Parallel Societies and No-go Zones

But can the Islamists' goals coexist with those of the Western
societies, among whom they live, and do these goals advance Western
strategic interests? An examination of Islamist-dominated communities
within Europe proper provides a categorical no.
Firstly, there is the value of tolerance of others' viewpoints, at
the very least an aspiration of all Western societies. As articulated by
Ali Kettani, one of the first Muslim writers to actively explore the
ramifications of Muslim communities in the West, "Believing that all
religions are the same is the first sign of religious assimilation" and
needs to be discouraged. Instead, he wrote:

A Muslim community should try to move from a position of
mere defensive concerns, and try to spread the message of Islam outside
the community. If successful, such a community would grow constantly in
influence and numbers as to become a majority community in course of
time. To become a "successful community" should be the aim of every
"Muslim minority." This is an ideological necessity without which the
entire presence of the minority would be Islamically unacceptable.[25]

Rather than demonstrate hostility toward non-Muslims, Muslims were to
engage with them and seek to convert them to Islam. But this
proselytization for a different outlook or behavior based on religion
was not to be restricted to the relatively benign arena of one's
personal spiritual development. Rather, the ultimate goal was to change
the politics of the host country:

Eventually, the community may seek to gain political
rights as a constituent community of the nation. Once these rights are
obtained, then the community should seek to generalize its
characteristics to the entire nation.[26]

A
"Zone Sensible Urbaine," or no-go-zone, Nice, France. The French
government now posts online a list of more than 750 no-go zones where an
estimated five million Muslims live. Tourists and non-Muslims are urged
to avoid these areas, over which the French state has lost control and
where French law does not apply.

In other words, Shari'a should replace Western law, and Islam should
dominate. This matches the contemporary vision of Muslim Brotherhood
spiritual leader Qaradawi as expressed on Qatar television in 2007:

The conquest of Rome—the conquest of Italy and
Europe—means that Islam will return to Europe once again. But must this
conquest necessarily be through war? No. There is such a thing as a
peaceful conquest … The peaceful conquest has foundations in this
religion, and therefore I expect that Islam will conquer Europe without
resorting to the sword or fighting. It will do so by da'wa and ideology.[27]

Thirty years after Kettani's writing, the results of this effort are both impressive and disturbing but far from peaceful:

The French government now posts online a list of more than 750 zones sensibles urbaines or no-go zones where an estimated five million Muslims live.[28]
Tourists and non-Muslims are urged to avoid these areas, over which the
French state has lost control and where French law does not apply.

A senior German police commissioner reported that there were areas
where the "power of the state is completely out of the picture."[29]
In 2010, the police union in North Rhine-Westphalia brought in Turkish
police to help control Turkish populations in major cities.[30]

The Netherlands government, under the pressure of a court order, published its list of 40-50 no-go zones in major Dutch cities.[31]

In the United Kingdom, Islamist leader Anjem Choudhary has launched
an Islamic Emirates Project naming a dozen British cities or parts of
cities as territories that should be brought under Shari'a rule under
the motto: "The end of man-made law, and the start of Sharia law."[32]

In Brussels, the Muslim ghettoes are becoming dangerous for
non-Muslims as well as for women who venture into the cafes or date
non-Muslim men.[33]

Indeed, Islamist "morality police" in numerous European cities now
seek to prohibit women in short skirts, prostitutes, homosexuals, or
people consuming alcohol in areas they designate as Muslim. Former
Islamist Maajid Nawaz, now head of the British counter-extremism think
tank Quilliam, notes that Islamists as well as far-right groups are
seeking to "enforce their version of law in neighbourhoods." He links
the Islamist enforcers to a wider pattern of al-Qaeda resurgence and
jihadist activity in many countries and worries that "the Islamist world
view is an entrenched default position even among many non-devout
British Muslims."[34]
But the constrictive values of European Islamists are not limited to
their co-religionists. The next step is to dominate surrounding
non-Muslim communities. Some moves may seem innocuous such as demands
that schools or prisons serve food meeting Islamic requirements or that
public swimming pools provide segregated hours for women. Blocking
streets for public prayers is a step further along the path; law-abiding
citizens are being told in essence that the streets, at least for that
period of time, belong to one group alone.
An even more alarming transfer of power from the state to an
assertive minority is the increase in street crime in Muslim-majority
areas (and not only those areas) because authorities fear exacerbating
tensions or, worse, fear for their own safety. Oslo police authorities
have reported that the majority of identified rapes in 2011 were
committed by males of "non-Western background."[35]
British courts tried cases in 2012 and 2013 in which "Asian" gangs
lured pre-teen and teenage girls off the streets and made them sex
slaves whom they hired out.[36]
"Non-Western background" and "Asian" are two common euphemisms for
"Muslim"; this recourse to circumlocution indicates how far the
Islamists' campaign of intimidation and dominance has already succeeded.
These actions reflect the criminal desires of the perpetrators, but
they exist in tandem with Shari'a provisions on non-Muslim women and
their lack of value.
Indeed, according to press reports, the streets of some European cities are increasingly controlled by Islamic gangs.[37]
The gangs themselves may simply be engaging in criminal activity and
use no-go zones as a convenient refuge or base of operations. Their
connection to Islam may be purely pragmatic. As one British gang member
put it, "The reality is that Asian gangs don't give much of a toss about
religion, but with Islam comes fear, and with fear comes power."[38]
But such power ought to belong to the state and its representatives
alone. A breakdown in authority of this fashion bodes no good for
European society as a whole.

Manufacturing and Exploiting Crises

The
Muslim Association of Britain, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, turned
out an estimated crowd of 100,000 in April 2002 in London to protest
the Israeli foray into Jenin. Such groups as the MAB are capable of
enhancing the Islamist influence and political power in Europe.

While the existence of no-go zones in and of itself poses a
substantial challenge to the internal security of West European
countries, the true challenge is even greater as Islamists also seek to
change more than just domestic mores. The Danish cartoon crisis of late
2005-early 2006 illustrates this plainly.
While the rage of Muslims over the supposedly blasphemous depictions
of Muhammad is well-known, what is less acknowledged is that two Danish
imams with connections to the Muslim Brotherhood traveled to various
Muslim countries at this time, promoting outrage (and worse) against the
cartoons and adding new, highly offensive ones to make their case even
stronger. Among others, they met with Qaradawi. Eventually, the Arab
League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), representing
fifty-six Muslim countries, decided to back the imams, and an
international firestorm erupted.[39]
Individuals connected with the cartoons faced assassination threats.
Turkey, led by the Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, extracted a groveling
promise to work with the Muslim world from former Danish prime minister
Anders Fogh Rasmussen as a precondition for him to become NATO secretary
general.[40]
Rasmussen's offense was to have defended the freedom of the press of
his country during the controversy. Thus the European Islamists, working
with Muslim governments, were able both to manufacture a crisis and
then force a senior European politician to do their bidding.
The impact on foreign and security policy by the Islamists who claim
to represent Europe's Muslims is only beginning to emerge. Muslim
leaders' chief concern so far appears to be European policies toward
Muslims and Muslim countries, as well as the Arab-Israeli conflict. But
what must be borne in mind is that most of the countries whose
instability can affect Europe are Muslim.
It should be added that while Islamists have become increasingly
active, the foreign policy positions they espouse have also been
advocated by others, making their specific contribution to outcomes
unclear. What is certain, however, is that their engagement has greatly
benefited them, demonstrating that these groups are capable of both
considerable policy flexibility and of enhancing Islamist influence and
political power in Europe.
Take the response to the outbreak of Yasser Arafat's war of terror (euphemized as the al-Aqsa Intifada
after the mosque in Jerusalem) in September 2000. While the umbrella
Muslim Council of Britain was reluctant to endanger its standing with
the government and the British establishment by plunging into the fray,
the smaller Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), linked to the Muslim
Brotherhood, had no such qualms. In April 2002, it turned out an
estimated crowd of 100,000 in London to protest the Israeli foray into
Jenin which, despite all evidence to the contrary, was widely labeled a
massacre.[41]
The following September, as Saddam Hussein refused to comply with
international demands to come clean on Iraq's non-conventional weapons
arsenal, the MAB partnered with the far-left Stop the War Coalition
(StWC) to mount a large joint demonstration in Trafalgar Square.
Subsequently, StWC went on to organize more than twenty rallies,
including a huge February 2003 demonstration against the imminent Iraq
war.[42]
The MAB skillfully exploited resistance to the unpopular war in Iraq, a
powerful issue because it directly affected British citizens, while
fomenting further opposition to Israel, a cause that has continued long
after Britain withdrew its forces from Iraq. The MAB had to counter
opposition from other Islamists to any political engagement with
non-Muslims as well as protests from some of its activists who felt
exploited by the "secular white Left."[43]
However, the collaboration rested on the firm ideological conviction
that "anti-Zionism and opposition to Western foreign policy were the
founding principles of the left-Islamist alliance and remains [sic] its energizing core."[44]
And there were practical benefits, too. The Socialist Workers Party
(SWP), normally a marginal actor, was particularly delighted with the
MAB's ability to turn out large crowds of truculent demonstrators. From a
small group with 400 members, MAB catapulted to prominence and found
political legitimacy. The concrete embodiment of this new-found
legitimacy was the emergence of the Respect Party, which included
members of the MAB, the Muslim Council of Britain and the far-left SWP.
The Respect Party did well in the May 2007 elections although it
subsequently fell apart in the 2010 general elections.
While the MAB's antiwar activities pitted it against the British
establishment, by February 2006, some of its members had formed a new
organization, the British Muslim Initiative (BMI). With Qatari funding,
the new outfit has organized annual meetings of IslamExpo, a large
cultural gathering that attracts tens of thousands of British Muslims
and presents it as mainstream.[45]
BMI has also established an Arab television channel, al-Hiwar, which
boasts some two million viewers in Europe, the Mideast, and North
Africa.[46] Its chairman Azzam Tamimi, in the past, expressed his willingness to become a suicide bomber.[47]
In mid-2009, a new Islamist entity emerged. The Middle East Monitor
(MEMO), a public relations and opinions website and activist
organization is led by Daud Abdullah, a former deputy secretary general
of the Muslim Council of Britain; Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Brotherhood
founder Hassan Banna, is an adviser. In a relatively short time, MEMO
has acquired considerable respectability, with some of its concrete
foreign policy initiatives gaining traction. It organized a trip for
mainstream journalists in May 2010 to Syria and Lebanon, which prompted
an interview with Hamas leader Khalid Mashal by The Guardian. It
was also a strong proponent of the effort to bring alleged Israeli war
criminals to justice, an initiative that complicated relations between
the British government and Israel when Israeli government and military
officials canceled trips to the U.K. to avoid arrest.[48]
Thus, despite fissiparous organizational structures, shifting
alliances, and occasional criticism for their radicalism, Islamist
organizations have used Middle Eastern conflicts to improve their
standing, gaining recognition as the face of Islam and acquiring
influence with the British government and establishment.

NATO's Libyan Intervention

In contrast to their positions vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict or
Western intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, European Islamists
supported NATO's 2011 intervention in Libya. While organizationally they
benefited from opposition to Israel and to the war in Iraq, support for
NATO actions in Libya may have benefited them even more.
The beginning of the revolt against Mu'ammar Qaddafi on February 17,
2011, was anything but accidental. This date was deliberately selected
to commemorate protests in Benghazi five years earlier in response to
the Danish cartoons of Muhammad.[49] As this anti-Qaddafi wave of protest ensued, Qaradawi issued a fatwa (religious edict) "obliging any Libyan soldier who had the opportunity to do so to assassinate the leader"[50]
while the British Muslim Brotherhood openly supported its fellow
Islamist groups in Libya. Abdulmonem Hresha, an exiled member of the
Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, welcomed NATO air strikes in the group's name
while Amin Bilhaj, then president of the Muslim Association of Britain,
was identified as "a leading figure in the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood."[51]
Islamist connections to the Libyan opposition proliferated. Sheikh
Ali Sallabi, one of Qaradawi's close associates in Qatar, oversaw the
emirate's support to the rebels and is now the leader of Libya's
Islamist movement.[52]
Sallabi supports basing Libya's next constitution on Shari'a, following
the gradualist models of Islamists in Turkey and Tunisia.[53]
Qaradawi also has ties to Sheikh Hamza Abu Fas, Libya's minister of
religious affairs, who has attended meetings of two organizations headed
by Qaradawi: the International Union for Muslim Scholars and the
European Council on Fatwa and Research.[54]
In November 2011, Hamza called for overturning an existing law that
allowed a first wife to veto marriage to a second wife, advocated for
thieves to have their hands amputated as dictated by Islamic
jurisprudence, and called for only Islamic-sanctioned banking in Libya.[55]
Not only has Hamza been linked to the al-Qaeda-connected terrorist
group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), but "at least three
al-Qaeda-linked militants … played leading roles in the anti-Qaddafi
uprising … one of them, the historical leader of the LIFG Abdul Hakim
Belhadj, would emerge as the military governor of the Libyan capital."[56]
A number of Egyptian and Libyan sources have alleged that the Egyptian
Muslim Brotherhood, including Brotherhood leader and former Egyptian
president Mohamed Morsi, played a direct role in the September 11, 2012,
terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.[57]
So far there have been no such allegations regarding the Libyan Muslim
Brotherhood, but there is little doubt that their ties to terrorist
organizations helped foster a favorable environment in Libya for such an
attack.
While it may be premature to conclude that Islamism has triumphed in
Libya, there is no doubt that leading European Islamists saw an opening
and pursued it in an intelligent and coordinated fashion, positioning
themselves to play a dominant role in post-conflict Libya while
enhancing their standing with the British and French establishments.

Conclusions

The European experience with parallel societies and no-go zones
suggests that accommodationist trends and demands for Islamist
prerogatives have the potential to seriously damage the internal
security of European states and greatly constrain their ability to
participate in NATO operations in Muslim countries. If these trends
continue, European military organizations will be increasingly unsure of
the loyalty of their service members while governments will face
continuing pressure to extend Muslim enclaves and impose Shari'a more
broadly. European governments may either decline to participate in
crisis management operations in Muslim countries or do so only if
European Islamists decide that such operations are acceptable.
The first step in solving these problems is to acknowledge them.
Several years ago, the leaders of France, Germany, and Britain conceded
that the policy of multiculturalism, which paved the way for separate,
internal Muslim societies, had failed. But now European leaders must
publicly articulate the reasons why all citizens and residents must
adhere to European laws rather than Shari'a. They must then reassert
their authority in all no-go areas within their territory.
European governments should also state openly their opposition to
Islamist goals, including the establishment of a global caliphate
(whether called by that name or not), and they must stop the entrenched
practice of assuming that Islamists speak for all Muslims. Further, as
they explain that the imposition of Shari'a would negate centuries
of Western progress in human and civil rights, they must vigorously
enforce those rights for all those now residing in their countries. And
they must address the sensitive topic of immigration policy, rather than
shy away from it. An open discussion of Islamist goals would also help
to clarify the objectives of any proposed crisis management operations,
making it more likely that future operations would in fact promote
freedom and democracy rather than Islamist interests.

Leslie S. Lebl, a former U.S. diplomat, is
principal of Lebl Associates and a fellow of the American Center for
Democracy. She writes on Islamism in Europe.